unat '04--Day Eleven (Back in the U.S.)

Cache Creek to Tower Rock, Washington, USA
Today's Mileage: 425 mi. Total Mileage: 6,285 mi.
TT: 11 hrs. TTT: 83 hrs.
Quote of the Day: "WASP WE ARE SCARY POSERS"—scratched in ballpoint on a guitar owned and smashed by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain
News of Note: At this year's Mississippi State Fair, fairgoers will have the opportunity to shake hands with or get an autograph from the Right Reverend Edgar Ray Killen, chief suspect of the 1964 murder of three Civil Rights workers—columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr syndicated in The Seattle Times

The sun rises behind the bluff against which we've camped. This bluff, by the way, has turned out to be a manmade, a carved mound of earth used to separate the RV's and tents from a cute housing development on the other side. The "brook" found in the campground's name is a simple culvert cut through the far end. We wave goodbye to Brookside knowing that Steve has scored a breakfast of eggs, bacon and flapjacks from the RV campers convened on the site.

The longest highway construction delay finds us near the Hell's Gate gorge of the Fraser River. This last stretch of highway in Canada doesn't fail to match the drama of the rest of the trek. By lunch (at a McDonald's in Abbotsford—don't ask why), scenery has given away to the exurbs of Greater Vancouver. We take a back approach to the U.S. Border (not for any reason other than I've missed the first exit) and again pass through the checkpoint without a search or any other delays. A few miles beyond the Customs station, an American flag and small Statue of Liberty on a berm in a dairyfield serve as the only reminder that we're back in the U.S.A.

Within a half-hour, Andy is negotiating Seattle traffic. On a whim, we swing into the Seattle Center and elect to visit Paul Allen's Experience Music Project. We park directly across the street ($8) and make our way through the light Monday crowd into the unusual building for our tickets ($20). Obviously, there are expansive exhibits on Hendrix and Nirvana. The Beatles (or their accompanying paraphernalia, anyway) get a big space. Rhett Miller, Steve Earle and Springsteen have all given notebooks to the songwriting exhibit. The QOD comes from a broken guitar affixed to the wall and the words are scrawled beneath an applique of the ModSquad on the body. I attempt to play keyboards with Ray Charles (bad idea), while Andy masters base and guitar with various other artists. We stay two hours (Traveler's Note: If the people you're traveling with are big music fans, you're going to need to allow yourself at least 2 ½ hours, not to mention the Science Fiction museum in the building, which I have no report on) and march out into the grand area that was once the World's Fair area that built the Space Needle. (Another synchronicity moment—see the NON today.) During a quick glance around, I am suddenly struck with an image—surprisingly, not of those who attended that Exhibition—but the other thousands gathered here in 1963 to protest the police killing of a black youth in Birmingham, Alabama on the day of the Sixteenth Street Bombing (I am reading Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home now). In Olympia, we make a few phone calls (including one to Andy's former Alaska boss, Bill, with whom we're to stay tomorrow) and have dinner at a Shakey's clone on the eponymous Sleater-Kinney Road. Gasoline is already about $.71 cheaper.

Heavy coastline fog greets us as we travel west into Randle and then the Gifford Pinchot National forest. In an attempt to find a place to bed down, we drive deserted forest service and logging roads, their narrowness enhanced in the dark by the tree boughs hanging over the road, a new definition of tunnel-vision. Again by accident we find the Tower Rock campground and pitch camp. At three a.m., a strange rumbling noise that seems to come from the north wakes me.